Peer to Peer Teaching

Students listen to their peers more than they listen to adults.  An effective way to teach students something important is to create a teaching method that utilizes this fact. Create a peer to peer delivery system that allows students to teach that information to their peers. The first iteration of our current Peer to Peer teaching model was called Certifiably LIT (learning-Inspiring-Teaching).
 
The Beginning Peer to Peer Programs
 
In September 2017 the first version 1.0 Certifiably L.I.T. Health Initiative was completed at Newark Tech High School’s TEAL Center. 38 students from Newark Tech’s TEAL Center were taught a health curriculum developed by developed and taught by Ironbound USA and the Rutgers School of Nursing.  The curriculum included knowledge on HIV, STD’s, smoking, teen pregnancy, diet plus other topics.  The students were taught the curriculum and then taught methods to teach the curriculum to their peers. Peer to peer teaching.
 
In September 2018 Certifiably LIT version 1.1 was taught to 41 Newark Tech TEAL students.  This was a revised and improved version of 1.0.  Again this was designed & developed by Ironbound USA and the Rutgers School of Nursing. The subjects were similar to 1.0 along with the addition of opioid use.  (read more)
 
Infection Control (Pre-Pandemic)- The importance of washing your hands (May 2019)
 
In May 2019 Certifiably LIT version 2.0 was taught by Ironbound USA during our Spring Phase course at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, NJ. In version 2.0 we concentrated on Infection Control. According to the C.D.C. (Center for Disease Control) the best and most effective way to control the spread of the flu and colds is to regularly wash your hands. Yes, hand washing in schools is the most effective action a student can take to reduce absenteeism.  We thought that was an important story to tell.   
 
As a class we determined that the greatest impact we could make would be to produce a peer to peer video about the importance of hand washing. The videos that were currently available were either too clinical and/or not relevant to the students.  We could get students to act with a good video. We discussed the importance of “story telling” when making a peer to peer video. If you don’t like the story, your peers won’t either. You are the audience.
 
Our class researched the subject of infection control- hand washing. We learned effective and credible research methods while doing our research.  We  discussed why we must use credible information from well respected sources.  Just because you read it on the internet does NOT give that information credibility.  It is critically important to use credible sources if you are making an argument why something is important.  In the arena of sickness and disease sourcing information from CDC or NIH like sources strengthens your story. We created a story board for our message and the scenes needed to tell our story. Then we made the video.
 
 
To better understand the effectiveness of our video, we worked with the Rutgers School of Nursing and created a quick and easy to administer and collect questionnaire.  On May 29th, 2019 we presented our video to approximately 520 students in the 7th thru 12th grades at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, NJ.  As a class we distributed a pre-video questionnaire and collected it before the video was shown.  Then we distributed the same questionnaire after (post) video.  We received back 442 questionnaires before the video and 462 after the video.  This was an incredibly rate of completion for the questionnaire.  Rutgers School of Nursing is tabulating the data. 
Certifiably LIT 2.0 Infection control was a successful campaign.  
 
Please remember this was done pre-pandemic.

Read about Mariano’s experience during the infection control program in the St. Benedict’s News

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Gary Bloore & Lincoln Mullings discuss infection control peer to peer program